About Lelland Fletcher
I received an email from Lelland Fletcher, who was on Guadalcanal at around the same time as my father. Together, we were able to piece together some missing information about my father's experiences, as well as his own. I decided to include Lelland's story on this site, as another example of a young man's experiences in World War II. Read Lelland's story and view the photos.
Lelland Fletcher in the U.S. Navy
I enlisted in the U. S. Navy at the Federal Building at 12th and Market St. in St. Louis, Missouri on July 29, 1943 on my 17th birthday. Permission had to be granted from my father in Paragould, Arkansas, so I had to wait for that to transpire to be in the Navy.
In August, I was put aboard a train to Idaho; all the while expecting to be sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, Ill. Traveling by train with no one but inductees was a crowded and interesting trip. We ended up at Farragut, Idaho, which was 40 miles from Spokane, Washington, we were told. Right away I learned that anything bad that happened to us was the fault of Eleanor Roosevelt, and not President Roosevelt and that idea was ingrained in me throughout my Navy career. Everyone respected the president but not his wife (in future years, I learned a different story and I respected both of them!). The idea of this being that Farragut was way out in the boondocks, away from civilization. It was on the shores of Lake Pend'Oreille, which I have never heard of.
We were issued shoes and separate leather tops to wear, plus bedding with hammock and sea-bag. We were given Navy blues and blue work clothes with sailor white hats, including other necessities to put in a ditty bag. We were told we had to wash our own clothes and there were brads with holes at the waist of the pants to tie them to the clothes line to dry.
On my ID was typed, "DOW". I did not pay attention to that at first, but later I realized that it meant, "Duration of War", meaning that if the war lasted 8, 10 or 12 years I would have been enlisted that long. It turned out to be 2 years, 7 months and 11 days for my luck. The training was uneventful for me, except firing a 3O.O6 rifle, which pushed us back onto the mat we were laying on due to the pressure of firing. Also, I had my teeth cleaned for the first time in my life! I stopped the Dental Technician and told him that I didn't appreciate his removing part of my teeth by scaling, as the area behind my lower front teeth was solid and he made them separated! HE stopped and said, "Look, I am cleaning the tartar off your teeth and it was solid". Remember, I am just 17 years old. Ha!
At the end of Boot Training, as we called it, we were sent home on leave on the train to St. Louis. Returning, I was interviewed by a specialist to decide what training I would be assigned to. Right away, he suggested I become a Medical Corpsman. I had never heard of the term before but he explained it and I bought that idea right away, as my idol in Arkansas was our family Doctor, George P. Bridges. When I was home on leave he was the first person I went to see, not my family or friends.
In November 1943, several of us were sent from Farragut by train to San Diego, CA. We were very excited that we would be going somewhere along the Pacific Ocean. It would be our first time viewing the ocean, as we were mostly from Central United States. We were on our way on the train at night and suggested that the first one to see the ocean out the window would awaken all others to view it. Lo and behold we were awakened for that and looked out the window and saw white on each side of the train - we were crossing over the Salt Lake in Utah. I don't recall seeing the ocean until I was in San Diego.
The training was normally 12 weeks, but reduced to 7 weeks by starting classes at 6:30 A.M through 10:30 P.M. The Navy had taken over the entire Park to utilize every area. My sleeping quarters was a hut built of wood, screen wire, tarpaulin in "Pneumonia Gulch", as we called it, because of everyone getting a cold. Today 3/12/15, it is adjacent to the west of the Space Theatre. It was close to the street car line on Park Boulevard to Broadway to Downtown San Diego. I was able to see Bob Hope, Jerry Collona and Francis Langford at the old Globe Theatre, the first movie stars that I had ever seen. Later, they came to perform for the Hospital on Guadalcanal.
At 6:30a.m.we started every morning at the long space of flowerbeds from the bronze horse down to the organ pavilion. We greeted each other on waking up in the morning by saying, "Let's go and look the horse in the rear"!
Upon graduating from Hospital Corp School, several of us were sent to the US Navy Hospital on Treasure Island near San Francisco for on the ward training. The ward was all genito-urinary patients. Being a 17 year old farm boy from Arkansas this was an eye-awakening experience. I did utilize a lot of what we were taught for physical exams later. Everyone in the services has heard the orders, "Strip off, bend over, spread your cheeks, bring it out and milk it down", as part of a physical exam.
I was urged to attend an autopsy as a learning experience, and did go, but after seeing a brain taken out by cutting the skull with a saw and the heart removed and weighed I had to leave.
As a group we were sent to the Naval Receiving Ship in Shoemaker, California. We were to await transportation to the South Pacific, which turned out to be Guadalcanal. I stayed about two weeks there and finally in February 1944, was taken to a pier in San Francisco to board a ship in the dark of night and could not tell much about the size and appearance of it. I was finally settled in and assigned a bunk. From that time on I never saw daylight for three weeks, but for one hour several times during the trip we were allowed to go top side for fresh air. Many of us were passing out from heat exhaustion in the passenger area. We would kid each other as to whether they were sleeping in a bunk or in the swimming pool area, considering it an honor to be in the latter, as there were single cots in the pool area.
We were told sometime after the ship left San Francisco that we were on the U.S.S. Normandy, a converted passenger ship acquired by the Navy. However, many years later I saw an old news reel by Pathe News. It showed the ship sunken and on its side in New York harbor. I kept checking on that ship and found that it never sailed. The word that spread around the ship that it was a luxury liner passenger ship converted by the Navy. Several names were discussed among us, but no one could come up with a name for sure. Upon corresponding and research with J.P. Campion and another passenger friend, I have determined that it was the U.S.S Monticello.
We arrived after dark several weeks later in New Caledonia and transferred to barges anchored in the bay at Numea. We stayed many hours in solid rain with all wet gear and finally transferred in March, 1944 to a smaller ship called the U.S.S. President Monroe. I was assigned a bunk in the bow of the ship. This was to be the only time in my life that I was sea sick and I was a deep sea fisherman for 40 years.
Our first stop was Russel Island, one of the Solomon Islands, disembarking a group of Corpsmen and Nurses. These groups of women nurses was the first to be sent to the South Pacific, the remainder of troops I believe, were offloaded at Guadalcanal.
We were on the beach at Guadalcanal for several hours and finally picked up by a Jeep. During this time, the Natives were climbing coconut trees and removing coconuts and hacking them open for us. As we rode in the Jeeps, we shortly passed a 200 acre field of coconut palms that had been denuded by fire. We were told they belong to the PalmOlive Company. The U.S. had to pay the company for their destruction because the United States had used the understory as a storage area for ammunition and the Japanese had destroyed it.
My 17 month tour on Guadalcanal was spent at USN Fleet Hospital 108, later named USN Mobile Hospital #8 (MDB-8). We had about 125 Corpsmen plus a group of roughly a dozen nurses assigned to the wards, which had been put together by Seabees with metal frame work. I worked mainly on medical wards, but did serve time on an orthopedic and surgical ward.
An interesting observation is about all the gear given to us in boot camp in Farragout, ID. The hammock and mattress had been given to us and carried aboard ship with difficulty, as the seabag was packed inside the hammock and mattress and tied and carried on our shoulders on and off the ships - very cumbersome and heavy - we were told after we settled in at the Hospital, that the Navy issued an order to discard the mattress and hammock, as they were no longer utilized.
After about a year we were given the opportunity to spend one week at the beach on the Island, furnished by the Navy for some R&R. Those with severe mental problems (their diagnosis, eh?) were sent to Australia for R&R. I don't know if they ever came back. I went back to work at the hospital after my week at the beach. So I guess was still a sane eighteen year old!
While stationed at Guadalcanal, there were many areas of battles, including, Iow Jima and Okinawa. During the 17 months I was there, I looked at the draft list published every day on the bulletin board to see if I had orders to be transferred to a LST for duty or to be shipped to the battle front somewhere, as there were 100 of 125 of us sent for these assignments. Only 25 of our original group were left at the hospital at the end of the war, September 2nd, 1945.
During the 17 months of duty, we did not have access to a stateside newspaper. We had no idea what was going on in the war. We did have broadcasts by Armed Forces Radio. That's when I found out that President Roosevelt had died and that Congress had passed a law not to send any one overseas under eighteen years of age. I had been sent there at seventeen years of age. I believe that that discrepancy is why I never had orders to go into combat.
An interesting situation developed near the end of the war regarding Elephantitis. This disease affected an entire group of Marines on another island (I forget which). They had come to us with a diagnosis and we would send them out on a work party, "digging ditches", so to speak. If they came in at the end of the day with a swollen arm or leg, we would send them back to the mainland to be treated at a facility in Sun Valley, Idaho. With the help of the climate, as well as some medication, it would control the disease. This condition was very prevalent in the South Pacific. The Natives called it Mu-Mu. I had pictures of a man pushing a wheelbarrow with his testicles inside.
Our group of 25 Corpsmen, and others attached to the hospital helped the Seabees dismantle the metal buildings of the hospital to move to Okinawa and had finished just before VJ Day, September 2nd, 1945. We were told that the entire hospital remains were dumped in the Pacific Ocean. We were in the Receiving Ship on the Island when the war ended. We were issued a 6-pack of beer, whereas the ships company was issued a case of beer. They put their cases of beer into 50 gallon drums outside of their Quonset Huts and naturally we helped ourselves to their beer after we finished with our 6-packs!
Finally after about 2 weeks the USS President Monroe arrived to take us home. The ship was completely full (plus some!!), but we were going home!!!!
We occupied ourselves by playing cards, doing calisthenics and other things. One source of fun was a seasick monkey. The only time in my life I have seen that, and I'll never forget it (not funny, but extra funny!!).
I was able to get assigned to Sick Bay on the Monroe and worked there in order to have a good bed and good food for the trip home. What a coincidence to go from New Caledonia on the President Monroe and to have returned on it to the US, 17 months later.
As with so many service men, I was up all night upon arriving in San Francisco so I could get to see the San Francisco Bay Bridge, signifying that I was finally home! We were transferred to Receiving Ship, Yerba Buena Island (aka Goat Island), in San Francisco Bay. From there we were given leave to go home.
I must tell this story now. Near the end of the war, summer of 1945 we were getting fresh food on Guadalcanal from Australia. One item we had for a meal was fried chicken, compared to dried, frozen food from the United States. I was eating at a table of about 12 sailors.
"This is good fried chicken, but not as good as we had in Arkansas!" I said At the other end of the table, another sailor piped up and said, "You from Arkansas, where?"
"Jonesboro" I yelled back
He said, "I'm from Jonesboro, where did you live there"?
Knowing that I had said Jonesboro, I assumed that he would not know my small town of Paragould, but would rather know a bigger one.
"Well I am not from Jonesboro, but Paragould." I said
He said, "where did you live in Paragould, I lived there too!"
I replied, "I did not live in Paragould, but in Miller Community."
He said, "Make up your damn mind! I lived there too!"
To think that we were that close to each other in young life and spent 17 months in Guadalcanal, never having met, until this time, because of fried chicken from Australia. His name was Harry Ray Williams and we went home to Paragould together, as he had an uncle, his only living relative, owned a used furniture store. I said that we would go there together, as my father owns a plumbing shop in Paragould. He said he didn't know where his shop was, and I figured that my dad would be able to tell us.
As we arrived home by train, I led him, walking about 3 blocks from the station to my dad's shop and lo and behold his uncle's furniture store was right next door to my dad's plumbing shop!
We had a ball in Paragould, needless to say. We returned after 10 days to San Francisco, stayed at Yurba Buena for a week or so, and both were transferred to San Diego to North Island Naval Air Station. We only spent one day together there, he was then transferred to Imperial Beach Naval Helicopter Station. I was sent to Brown Field Naval Air Station, which was used for training pilots to land on aircraft carriers.
When I was being discharged, I was asked to sign a waiver that I had refused to agree to participate in A-Bomb testing on Bikini Atoll for 6 months in receipt of payment for a year of service. I was rated PhM First Class and drawing $116 per month. I was discharged from the Navy in April, 1946. I was sent to Memphis Tennessee, which was the closest to my home town of Paragould. My friend "Willy" was discharged as well, but stayed in California. We remained friends for the rest of his life. He was in charge of Santa Fe Railroad from San Juan Capistrano to San Diego. I went to St. Louis, MO to go to college and to hopefully find a job. I was told I would have to go to the Draft Board, as I was required to sign up for the draft. I did get a job at a box factory and then enrolled into Washington University, where I took a Major in psychology with an AB degree, then to Washington University School of Dentistry as a DDS.
I did not have enough money to finish my last year of school and joined the Naval Reserves to earn some money, but was called to active duty in the Korean War. I was paid an Ensign's pay the last year and was deferred until I graduated and was sent for duty on the USS Okanogan APA-220, which was an Auxiliary Hospital Ship, serving 2 years, and then transferred to Washington DC to US Naval Gun Factory for 8 months. I was discharged as Lt, DC.
Footnotes
My dissertation regarding the USS Monticello AP-61, formerly the SS Conte Grande, as well as the USS President Monroe AP-104, formerly known as SS President Monroe has been interpolated through writing, reading and conference with J.P. Campion.
View Related Photos and Memorabilia